Liam closed his eyes, immediately processing the many many thoughts and images that flooded his mind without any warning. Even though he has already processed several souls until now, this flooding of his mind with the imprint of another person's entire life was something that was difficult to get used to.
That too it was not mere memories that he had to embrace. There were also strong emotions involved. More often than not these emotions involved rage, regret, desire, vengeance, anger, sadness, and an unfathomably deep longing for the final moments of the soul to be false, hoping for just one more chance at life.
Liam was not a stranger to these emotions. He accepted them and set them aside while starting to comb through the other memories as much as he could. At the same time, he also held the soul together, trying his very best to maintain its integrity or whatever was left of it. Crawford's soul was damaged in a very different way than his own soul.
The old man's soul was split into two, something that he had willingly done to mess with him and it backfired on him big time.
Liam already had the other half but the problem was that the other half was more like a clone which did not have much information. Its fighting abilities were passable but even in that department, the clone paled in comparison to the original. He needed the whole soul. There was simply no other way. Especially this soul. He needed it badly. Crawford alone held the answers to many of his questions. More importantly, this man definitely knew where Derek was at the moment.
If he succeeds in forging this soul or at least accessing all of its memories, he would surely be able to find a breadcrumb related to Derek and finally take concrete steps in bringing back the man whose loyalty was second to none.
So among all the forging he had done so far, this one was the most important by far.
Liam steadied his breathing and continued processing the soul. He had a feeling that this was going to be difficult which was why he waited in the first place and his intuition did not betray him. The complexity of Crawford's soul was unlike anything he had encountered before. The split had caused a sort of fragmentation in the memories and emotions, intertwining them in a chaotic mesh that was difficult to untangle.
The soul itself was very different from anything he had come across. While a normal person's soul was jam packed with memories and emotions, this soul was mostly empty. Almost 99.9% of the soul had absolutely nothing except for that small 0.1%. The problem was that the 0.1% was all spread out and hence difficult to grasp completely. If Liam was not careful he could easily lose something important.
Liam used his entire focus to gather everything but it was difficult considering that there was a lot of it which was once again weird considering that the guy wasn't all that powerful. He soon learned the answer as to why this was. Crawford's soul was somehow repetitive. His memories were repetitive. There was something very wrong with his soul.
Liam let go of the bizarre stuff. He couldn't care less about Crawford's soul getting further damaged or if he even managed to get a fully forged soul minion. All he really needed was that small nugget of information.
Seconds ticked by as Liam held the soul and combed it from top to bottom. The first time around he did not get it. The second time was a miss too. But how could he give up now? He continued to try when he finally got the specific part of the memory he had been searching all over for.
"Derek… Primeval Armament Realm?" Liam's eyes lit up with excitement. He had finally gotten a clue and he was pretty damn sure Crawford knew more about this. He dove back in to comb through the soul one more time.
He had to dig a bit deep but he soon got the information he was looking for. Unfortunately, it was not much. It looked like Crawford knew very little about the particular world. The Primeval Armament Realm was just that. It was one of the rare Primeval realms that had been explored by some powerful faction of the myriad realms. Crawford did not know which faction it was. Liam could only guess that the faction had something to do with the divine temple. Otherwise, the old man wouldn't have known about it in the first place.
Liam was about to scour the soul one more time when he suddenly stopped. The soul was ready.
Even better. Once the soul was forged then he did not have to go through everything . He could ask the old man personally.
Liam composed himself and once again manipulated the mana around him, this time even pouring in some of the saved up juices from his dao seed of mana manipulation. A few more seconds passed by when the soul in his grasp quivered before becoming fully compressed and stable. Liam did not waste time and immediately summoned the other half of the old man that he already possessed. With one final push, he combined both the soul beads together and watched as they fused into one. The process was delicate, requiring a finesse that Liam had honed over countless hours of soul manipulation. As the two halves merged, a bright light enveloped them, signifying the successful unification of Crawford's soul.
The moment the light dimmed, standing before Liam was a fully formed soul minion without any flaws. "Welcome back, Crawford."
The old man gasped as he took in his surroundings, his eyes wide with disbelief. "Where... Where am I?" His voice was shaky, reflecting the disorientation and confusion he felt.
"You're with me," Liam replied calmly, his gaze steady on the newly formed soul minion. "Do you still remember me?"
Crawford's face instantly shifted from confusion to shock and then an unmistakable glee. "You bastard! I finally got you! I win! Ha Ha!"